hydrogel

National Chemistry Week is the annual community event of the American Chemical Society (ACS). This year's National Chemistry Week theme is "The Sweet Side of Chemistry - Candy", showcasing the chemistry involved in candy and confections. In this online brown-bag conversation, presenters introduced National Chemistry Week, shared NISE Net activities that have a candy connection, demonstrated how to make edible gummy capsules, and explained the chemistry behind these sweet activities.

This is a recording of a NISE Network online brown-bag conversation held in 2013 focused on the science behind NISE Net activities related to polymers or light at the nanoscale. The following activities were discussed:

Hydrogels are polymers of great interest to researchers studying tissue engineering and nerve regeneration because they are compatible with a range of biological tissues and processes, they have mechanical properties similar to those of soft tissues, and they can be injected into tissues in liquid form. In addition, they allow living cells to assemble spontaneously on the scaffold structure.